Visions of Death
by Kestreleris
Summary: The president's been assasinated, the Doctor's curly head is in dire peril, and Sarah is blind and stuck in the clutches of a rather xenophobic Gallifreyan scientist. Lord help them all. SJ4 ish, Deadly Assassin AU, see AN


**Visions of Death**

A/N: This is a continuation of the AU seen in my vignette End of the Tunnel, so you might want to read that first. Don't you love my title?!? It's so old-school camp, it keeps in the 'death' element of the original title, and it ties in both Four's vision of the assasination and Sarah's lack of vision. Get it? Get? ...shut up, I know it sucks. XD Anyway. Fair warning; only the first chapter of a several-chapter AU of The Deadly Assasin. The later chapters are as yet unwritten, and it will likely take me several months of procrastination and writer's block to get any written. In preperation for that eventuality, this doesn't end in a cliffhanger, exactly; it could end right here, if I was one of those wicked vignette writers. 0:) But I'm not. So paitence, and more will come eventually. ...I hope. :o

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They were still in the vortex, an eternity of timeless time prickling at the edge of his conciousness, and his companion spoke up.

"Doctor."

He knew that tone of voice, and it made him nervous as he normally could be made by nothing short of the Daleks. "Yes, Sarah Jane?"

She turned to look at him, her eyes lining up somewhere near his left shoulder. Close enough, he thought, with very little humor. "Who were the friends of yours who had their memories taken by the other Time Lords?"

"Why do you ask, Sarah?" He had been slightly expecting the question, but not so much that he was able to excise the thread of pain from his voice. His companion's face softened in sympathy and she made an abortive movement to touch him before drawing back. She raised her chin, and he thought of a young journalist unexpectedly thrown into the middle ages and promptly leading a raid to capture a dangerous alien. The fact that it had been him she directed the others to capture didn't make the recollection any less of a fond one.

"You're not the only one to have adventures with your...your counterparts that bend the first law of time. I just..." she trailed off and sighed. "I would like to know how they ended up, Ace and Darcy and Jamie."

He smiled, his tension lightening slightly. "Well, I can't very well tell you about the first two. I haven't met them yet."

"And Jamie?"

The Doctor had been quietly drifting closer, and Sarah started as he rested a hand on her shoulder. "It was Jamie, I'm afraid." His eyes lost their focus. "Jamie and Zoe," he whispered, and the words were almost a prayer.

Her brow creased in sorrow. "I'm sorry."

He held her hand gently where she had placed it over his. "Me too, my dear. Me too."

"It's lonely out here sometimes, isn't it?"

He didn't reply beyond a nod he knew by now she would catch. He listened to the whisper of Time and thought, just perhaps, that she heard it too.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, and he grinned in appreciation of her attempt to lighten the mood as much as the jest itself.

"Why, yes. We are, and have been..."

"And are yet to come," they finished in unison, and she grinned up at him with the little familiar tilt of her head. "Seriously, Doctor, how long?"

"A day or two, relatively speaking of course."

"Oh. I suppose I have time for a sandwich or something after all, then, ey?"

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They were finally close enough and Sarah was persistant enough for him to elaborate on the scant details of his wonderfully vague plan.

"Doctor!" Sarah knew her voice was shrill and yet couldn't bring herself to wrestle it under control. "You're going to do what with me?!"

"It's the only way, Sarah Jane." His tone was reasonable but she refused to be placated. If there was one advantage to her current vision-impaired state it was the fact that he could no longer grin at her and give big blue puppy eyes out from under his curls when he wanted to have his way.

"I don't see why," she said. A touch petulantly, to be honest.

"I have to prevent the president's assasination. And since I am public enemy number three I won't be able to get close enough to do that unless I sneak in. And, I'm sorry, dearest, but you aren't much for sneaking at the moment." He paused, but she suspected he was trying to get a rise out of her and so stayed silent. "The only way this will work is for us to split up. The two of us together should be able to creep out of the TARDIS and get to a trans-mat station, and I should have just enough time to send you on your way and scramble the signal before I have to scarper."

Sarah would lose. She knew it and he knew it, but they also both knew she wouldn't go down easily. "But I thought there was a big issue here with safety. Remember? All my exiting memories ripped away so I can be dumped back on Earth without so much as a by-your-leave?" She was playing dirty, now. Sometimes, when she thought about it, she was unsettled by how far below the belt she had learned to hit. (Meanwhile, he tried not to think about how nobody was supposed to get close enough to be able to tell how to hit him where it hurt.) "How do you know that this friend of yours still works there? Lives there, whatever?"

"Well, I'm not sure I would say 'friend'. Time Lords aren't big on 'friends'. An acquaintance, rather." His tone took on a teasing quality. "I know you haven't actually seen my homeworld, but I've told you enough for you to know; things don't change on Gallifrey. The biggest change my acquaintence is likely to have made is to wear a hideous new hat, which would have been enough scandal for ten years."

Sarah sighed and tried a final half-hearted rally. "Maybe he regenerated and the new him is a violent xenophobe."

"He wasn't even two hundred when I last saw him. Plenty of wear left in a body at that age. Besides, we don't change that much." His hand was weaving through the hair at the back of her head to shake her head gently, and she was dispirited enough to retaliate with no more than a frown. "You will meet him, he will be rude and irascable, and then professional curiosity will take over and he'll figure out a way to cure you."

She leaned in to his hand...just a little. "And then you'll come for me?"

He pinched her chin lightly. "Always."

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He expanded on his plan a little, and she was perfectly capable of discerning the rest if she paid attention, but it wouldn't affect the outcome either way and she felt like a good sulk. It was, however, impossible to miss how clever he thought his preperations were by the way he was bounding around the control room to prepare.

Finally he came to a stop at her side with a little skid. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Sarah replied, a delicate grumble in her voice.

"Sarah." ...and there was the chiding voice. "Stop whinging or I'll bite your nose, see if I don't." She was annoyed with him, yes, but the tone still left her feeling mostly chastised, which in turn made her even more grumpy. In the end, it was a scowling and reticent human female who the Doctor pulled out the door and down the hall.

Her snit didn't survive very long in the face of the knowledge that this was her mysterious friend's mysterious homeworld that she was finally standing on, which in turn reminded her of why it was such a mystery to humans...by the time they reached the transmat station visions of being dumped in the middle ages with no memory vied with ideas as to what sort of zoo Gallifreyans kept primitive aliens in. So she was perhaps quite justified, in the moment of departure, in feeling some...anxiety.

"Doctor?" She hated the tremor in her voice, but at the same time felt a vague satisfaction in knowing what it could do to her Doctor.

He didn't sound affected though, curse him, when he replied cheerfully, "Nothing to worry about, Sarah Jane. You'll be there as soon as you know it and give Calmarat a good shock. When he recovers, hand him the note and all will be well." The beam was already engaged when he added, "I hope..."

If the recieving station posessed more than the most rudimentary intelligence, it would have been shocked by her language. But it didn't and it wasn't. The companion felt a bit better about things, though.

Sarah oriented herself on the platform and set off straight, as she'd been told, trailing slender fingers over the right wall untill the change in air pressure told her a crossway was just ahead. With a mental crossing of fingers, she took the left fork and strode ahead with as bold a pace as she could manage, lips tightened as she got firm control over herself. It was just as well she did, because as soon as she entered the room at the end of the hall a quite young voice said indignantly, "Who are you?"

_"An old friend." "Grumpy old codger." "All by himself." Thanks, Doctor._ "I'm looking for Calmarat."

"I am he." Suspicion entered the haughty young voice. "How did you get in here? Only authorized transportations for research purposes are permitted to enter when I am here, and then only with my permission. I didn't hear anything about this."

"Oh, dear. Well..." The note crinkled as she dug it out of her pocket. "I have an explaination right here." She supposed it was encouraging, in a way. If things were going wrong at the beginning of the operation maybe there would be nothing left but good karma near the end.

The Gallifreyan's silence spoke volumes. When he finally broke it, it was in the tones of a man who had used up the day's ration of surprise. "The Doctor."

"Yes."

"Here."

"Not here, here, but on Gallifrey, yes. How did you think I arrived? The underground?"

He didn't acknowledge her barb, which was rather a pity. She wanted to see if all Time Lords were as fun to rile as the Doctor. "With a human."

"That would be me, yes."

"And he expects me to...treat you?

Sarah cocked an eyebrow. "Well, you needn't sound so horrified." She decided it was high time she stopped humoring his shock and changed the direction of the conversation. "Um, you've regenerated. The Doctor said your old body was still going strong."

"Yes, well, there was an accident. Lab explosion. It was regenerate or die." He sounded rather satisfied, like a little boy showing off a scar, and Sarah snorted. Apparently violent regenrations were rather romantic on the stangnant scholer-world. _Makes you wonder what all the Time Ladies think of the Doctor,_ she wondered, entertained by the notion. Calmarat must have noticed that she was unimpressed by his last regeneration's firey end, because his tone was frosty when he continued, "He doesn't say in the note why, exactly, I should bother."

Fortunately she was prepared for this eventuality. "Because you have never seen a human before and would find my physiology fascinating. And if you fix me you will be doing something even the Doctor couldn't do." She fixed her eyes in his general direction and sent out her most dazzling smile. "Not to mention you would have my undying gratitude."

The scientist cleared his throat. "Um, yes. Uh, it would certainly be fascinating to study your..." he seemed to grope for the right term for a moment; "Genetic code." He gestured for her to proceed him and she waited for him to catch on. "Ah, this way, Lady...?"

"Sarah Jane Smith." She could feel his blush as she trotted by, and snickered lightly. _Men._

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"Human female. Although lack of baseline comparison makes judgement difficult, subject appears to be in adequate health, approximately eighty years of age--"

"Twenty five!" Sarah corrected indignantly, but without much anticipation of it being heard. But despite a baleful look, he grudgingly amended the record:

"Or twenty-five, in Human years. Initial scans reveal acceptable physical norm only deviated from in inoperable eyes and damaged reproductive system causing infertility..." At first she didn't realize why he finally trailed off and paid attention to her, but then she realized that the shocked yelp that was fading out of the infirmary had come from her. She appeared incapable of speaking, so he asked, "Are you all right?" His voice was stiff, but at least the condescension had lightened slightly.

"Did you--" her throat closed up a little and she cleared it with an impaitent cough. "Did you say something about my reproductive--about infertility?"

Calmarat was clearly uncomfortable, no sight needed to catch that. "Yes..." there was the rustling of those plastic 'papers' as he showed her something, and then belatedly cleared his throat to explain verbally. Sarah found it within herself to be amused. "There appears to have been some, ah, radiation damage to the ovaries. Some time ago."

"Oh." She sighed, resigned to one more change. The doctor shifted very slightly and Sarah realized that he was waiting for an explanation. "Um, it must be the...toxemia something...I had to load radioactive materials into a warhead for a day. I did wonder at there not being more lasting effects, Sevrin said it was a nearly lethal dose..."

They were both silent for several minutes before Calmarat awkwardly touched her shoulder. It was about as gingerly as she would touch a dead rat, but she appreciated the gesture and so she smiled reassurance in his general direction. "It's all right, I suppose. I never really wanted to have children. Well, sometimes I wonder--but this makes the decision easy. One less thing to worry about." He gave her shoulder two uneasy pats and then fled to the refuge of professionalism.

"Yes, well, I will continue the examination, then. If you will--" the comm station in the corner of the room gave three polite beeps, and he cut himself off. "Excuse me." She listened as the sound of his footsteps changed from the muffled thump of boot on carpet to the sound of stone floor. The station gave the same funny little trill the TARDIS' did when you accessed a message, and she felt faintly homesick.

Gallifreyans read quickly. Sarah thought she knew enough about them to say that with fair certaintly, so unless someone had transmitted the entire text of War and Peace to the doctor, the silence from that end of the room was distinctly ominous. "Doctor Calmarat?" He was still quiet, and she slid uneasily off the glorified chaise lounge to take a step in his general direction. "Has someone found out I'm here?"

"What?" His voice was abstracted, and she was reminded again that this was a near-total stranger. "Oh, no. No problem with that." He must have turned, because he noticed her standing. "Oh, please, sit down. Sit." She did so, but stayed warily alert. He drew a deep breath to speak, and then let it out, aparently revising what he was going to say. "I suppose I should just tell you directly...the Doctor has...apparently...assisinated the President."

Sarah slumped back. "Oh."

He seemed to be waiting for more, but continued when none was forthcoming. "He is under arrest, to be tried at the earliest convenience."

"Oh."

Calmarat was definitely uneasy now. "It is, uh...there is a rumour...that is, speculation..." he gave up with a sigh. "He is probably to be executed."

"Oh." Sarah rested her chin on her hand. It was a full minute of gloomy contemplation before she was cued in by the shift of fabric to the fact that the scientist had no idea how she was going to react. _He's probably expecting hysterics from the emotional primitive any moment now. _So she looked up at him and raised her eyebrow, and with a sense of supreme irony said; "Again?"

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